The final round of voting for Edmonton's City Bird is now open. The boreal chickadee, blue jay, and black-billed magpie are the three species flying for your vote to be Edmonton's avian representative.
Thousands of Edmontonians voted in the first round to narrow the choices down to these three. Nick Carter, the nature kids coordinator with Nature Alberta and a council member of Bird Friendly Edmonton, said species had to be easily recognizable and live in Edmonton year-round to be considered for the vote.
The boreal chickadee has that call we all recognize — chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee — (which, by the way, has been described as "one of the most sophisticated and exacting systems of communication of any land animal"). But Carter said it sounds like a congested version of the call of its relative, the black-capped chickadee. "A lot of people wondered why we didn't have the black-capped chickadee (as a contestant), which is pretty well ubiquitous in the city, and that's because Calgary already took it," Carter said. "They scooped it out from under us, so we can't go with that one, because we want to be unique."
However, while the black-capped chickadee is found all across the country, the boreal chickadee is a northern species. Edmonton is Canada's northernmost major city, so the boreal is a fitting choice, Carter said.
Blue jays made it to the top three because they're popular, especially among older Edmontonians, Carter said. "We don't have another bird that common that's like, vividly blue, and they're intelligent, they're social. They do have some crow habits like being a bit loud and raucous and doing things like eating other small birds, but people tend to kind of look past that with blue jays nowadays," Carter said.
Carter mentioned that blue jays — associated with a certain Ontario city's baseball team — have become more common in Edmonton in recent years. Perhaps the Alberta is Calling campaign worked on more than just skilled workers.
The black-billed magpie, however, is Carter's pick, mainly because it's truly a Western bird, he said. The chickadee and blue jay can be found across most of Canada, but Edmonton is at the heart of the magpie's range.
"I think it's a pretty Edmonton kind of bird. It's something that we would want to be proud of, and it embodies a lot of the good and, you know, the less desirable about the city," Carter said. "It's scrappy, but it's intelligent, it's social, it's complex, it might not look all that much to us on the surface. But people from other parts of the world, or even other parts of Canada, see magpies and they're like, 'Oh my God, this is the most beautiful bird ever.'"
Carter encourages Edmontonians to vote early because he wants to beat the voter turnout for Calgary's ornithological election, which took place in 2022 and selected the black-capped chickadee. "It's going to be a bit of a tall order because we have a smaller population, but it'll be great for local pride if we can do that." Voting closes on March 31. When a victor is crowned, not much will change, Carter admits. But he hopes municipal officials take note of the vote and make one of the birds, whether magpie, chickadee, or blue jay, Edmonton's official fowl.